SMB storage explosion

One of the areas causing most angst to SMBs is email growth. Sargeant says SMBs now have to address email growth and something they haven’t tended to worry about too much in the past -- security of their data, backup and recovery.

"There’s been a lot more focus by vendors in that space because they see the growth potential," he says.

Email is the lifeblood of many SMBs, with email communications sometimes forming the only contract between them and their business partners.

Email is getting out of control and they’re getting to the point where they need well managed email systems so they can retrieve their data quickly.

Quantum’s Tamlin cites a study that showed 60 percent of corporate intellectual property is stored on email systems.

"Therefore correct email management is very important application for clients; applications which can archive to tape so you can retrieve data later but can keep searchable indexes online," he says.

Some applications that do that are amalgamated into the backup software products, and others are external products that you can buy, he says.

Email archiving might not sound very glamorous, but it’s a hot area particularly if you’re a financial organisation. From a business compliance perspective, full, indexed access to all of your emails may be required because they form part of the business record of your interaction with your client, says Veritas’ Wilson.

"Email archiving is a huge issue and we’re inundated with business opportunities around that. We’ve got more resellers wanting to get into that space than we’ve got the capacity to support at the moment, so that’s a very very high growth area," he says.

Another thing storage players are keeping a keen eye on is iSCSI. Although iSCSI has been around for a little while, it has recently been ratified by the IEEE as an industry standard.

FalconStor’s Norton says this means organisations can now deploy SANs or solutions that enable them to consolidate and centralise their storage without having to use fibre channel.

"They can use ethernet, they can use their existing LAN architecture, they don’t have to get people that are skilled in fibre channel or SANs and they can use their existing competency," he says.

"It’s a very attractive option for SMBs. It enables them to basically plug and play solutions, and most of the major storage vendors are now coming out with iSCSI solutions. iSCSI is becoming the defacto storage standard. The next three years we’ll see iSCSI as the prevalent storage platform," he says.

EMC is excited about iSCSI, not just because it reduces the cost of the SAN and you don’t require the fibre connection, but because a lot of channel partners are more familiar with the network environment than they are with the SAN environment.

"It opens up a new cost bracket for us and opens up our market segment. It also offers a new range of partners who are thinking, 'OK, I understand iSCSI, I understand networks and I understand where it all fits'," says Henderson.

The feeling storage is getting out of control has spurred a number of vendors’ renewed interest in the managed storage space.

"They manage the storage for you, back it up, secure it. The major vendors and service providers will do that, but we’re also seeing some of the smaller ones taking over storage management on behalf of companies. Managed storage is growing, I wouldn’t say it’s big but it’s growing," Sargeant says.

A lot of the manage storage services are on the SMB’s own premises because they don’t like to let their storage out of their sight. "They like to have it there so they can put their arms around it a bit."

Sargeant also says the concept of storage on the end of a wire or being remotely managed is in its infancy but also growing.

SMBs need to choose their storage partners wisely says Peridata’s Cipriani, and preferably someone with local support and services.

Peridata's Capriani: SMBs rely on hard disk to hard disk backups

"SMBs have become increasingly frustrated by box-loads which are dropped off at their doorsteps with do-it-yourself notes attached…They need the convenience of local service and the satisfaction of human, timely response.What they don’t need is some [one] on another continent…trying to support them. Simply put, the SMB wants one hand to shake or one neck to break."

Channel partners have to constantly make decisions about how to position their business. There are a thousand technologies out there, and EMC’s Henderson feels for them.

"Partners have to place a bet and make an investment. Storage has a long way to go, and it isn’t just storage anymore, we see it as a manager of information which has so many dimensions in it. There’s a future of at least five to seven years for partners in it," Henderson says.

But success won’t come without labour. "It’s not a matter of just servicing a demand for the customer, it’s about creating demand also. If the customer says, 'My mailboxes are full', you’ve got a couple of options. You can just go in there and just put another half terabyte of storage onto the network and walk away with a $5000 dumb device."

However, that same job could have been a $50,000 opportunity. "The IT provider needs to take the time and effort to understand the customer’s problems -- now and in the future -- develop a solution for it and present that rationale to the customer."

Henderson says there are about 5500 resellers in Australia, and approximately 300 to 400 of them that are capable of installing a simple SAN.

"So that leaves 5000 plus partners out there who are taking very simple solutions to what could be a more effective solution for the customer. They’re just sticking on JBODs and walking away and that’s the problem. The customer might be happy for the moment, but have you actually added anything of value? Are you doing them justice? If you don’t, someone else will."